Screams in the Night
by sheneedsanewname
Summary: Frodo foresees the future one night...


Screams in the Night

Disclaimer: I'd like to see the person who thinks I own this.

Archives: Please, just ask.

Warnings: Dark. Frodo POV.

Rating: PG13

Reviews: Constructive criticism? PLEASE.

A/N: Frodo wakes up in the night with a dreadful premonition of the future. I know perfectly well how his parents died… but damn it, you do dream weird things. This made me really uncomfortable writing this. It freaked me out. Take that as your warning.

Someone's screaming; their head tossed back and blood running down between those dark brown curls. I grope to find them, clutching the child, it's only a little child, and I hold its head in my hands and realize it's my own face.

A woman snatches the child from me with a ringing slap, "Get away!" and runs. I follow, simply because there's nowhere else to go. She's very young, barely out her tweens, her pretty face is bleeding too and she's crying and crying and crying.

Someone grabs her from behind and she trips and falls, the child dashing his head against a rock and lying too still. I check his pulse and find that he's dead. The mother won't stop screaming and crying as she tries to grasp her child, as the Orc  pulls her away. 

She calls out his name, my name, "Frodo!"                    

And I know who it is. I haven't seen her for so many years her face had dimmed, but I run towards her now, clutching her tight, whispering her name. She doesn't recognize me, but cries in my arms as I try to pull her away from the Orc, who growls and grunts and knocks me down with an easy twist of the arm.

My head is ringing as I force myself to stand up again; dizzy I search for my mother in the crowds of screaming hobbits.

There are too many and I cannot see her, and when I look back, the child's corpse has vanished.

I realize I'm crying then, my heart crying gallons and I fall to the ground totally defeated. I hear Sam's voice as he's scorched with a brand of some kind, screaming my name.

"Frodo! Frodo!"

I cannot move, but his pitiful cries of pain increase and erupt into one huge long scream. I sob as his voice dies down and is replaced by the murmuring of many others, cries of horror as they finally realize what's going to happen to them. I look up but I can't see Sam anywhere, Merry and Pippin are dragged past me, shrieking as valour vanishes in the face of hopelessness.

I see their torn faces, and force myself to stand up, to save them, but they've vanished into the mist, where their voices are added to thousands of others, who wail their eerie chants in the darkness. Suddenly, I am alone, in a land so blackened and burnt, I believe it to be Mordor, yet, I'm wrong, for looking closer, I recognize some of the rough shape of the land and realize it's the Shire. Blood has darkened the earth and the howls of my friends shade the background black.

There's no moon to guide me, no trees, no friendly face, no cheerful call, just, beyond my vision, a great mist. I take a great breath and run into it, the grasping choking cold freezing my insides and drowning hope.  
I see many figures, frozen in time, like statues, moving slowly. There's no sound, just twitches as they are tortured mercilessly. I wander past them like a dream, pushing myself past every familiar face. I won't stop until I find Sam, Merry, Pippin… or Bilbo.

The idea that Bilbo might be here horrifies me so much that I break down again, in fact, I never really thought I stopped crying. I listen for his voice in the melodies of torture, but it's not there, and though I scan the room many times I do not see his form.

Or maybe I do not recognize it, for I have stumbled on what the Elves went through many years ago, many ages away and turned them into Orcs and my stomach turns in dread as I realize what is going to happen.

There are many bloodstained corpses piled around this place, and I search for a face, pushing their heavy bodies out the way. They've lost all personality, all meaning to me. I lift Rosie out the way, her face mutilated almost beyond recognition, the Gaffer, one of the Proudfeet… many, many others, yet I cannot reconcile myself to the fact I may never find my friends, or my mother… or even my father… and the tears ran red in that evil place.

"Mister Frodo!"

I whip round as fast as possible, searching for that oddly cheerful voice. I call his name back, I call many other names back, but I never hear another answering call, and my hopes are dashed, all but the one overriding one, that they are dead and peaceful rather alive and in the forms of the wizard's slaves.

That hope is futile. I know it is, yet I hold on to it as my last remaining possession, and slip outside, where, though the air is scorched, at least there are no caricatures of my friends.

I run, the coward that I am, and run, until I reach the river, a dark slug under the abhorrent land. Incongruously, a boat floats in the water, a nice hobbit size, and two sit in it, embracing. I laugh hysterically, for the faces of these hobbits are rotten and eaten away and… they are my mother and father's. I wade out to them, and touch their faces, very gently. They do not move, they're so icy, but very gradually the boat begins to rock and their stiff bodies are thrown over, toppling into the cold water. I dive for them, but my father has already sunk beyond my reach, and my mother floats on the surface. I reach to help her up, but half way through my pull turns into a push and I submerge her, again and again. She struggles weakly in my grip, and her flesh falls away at my touch, but I'm still stronger than my fear and I drown her there, my own mother.

And when I wake up, much later, I realize the screams in the night were my own.


End file.
